Education on Standardization

In 1970, the UNECE Government Officials Responsible for Standardization Policies, the predecessor of WP. 6, developed Recommendation I that urged governments to include standardization in the curricula of educational institutions.

A preliminary survey conducted in 2011 in countries of the UNECE region revealed that more than 40 years after the adoption of the recommendation, very few universities yet include standards-related issues in the curriculum of students majoring in technical and scientific subjects. An analysis of such courses showed also differences in the underlying educational approaches.

In this context, the UNECE secretariat initiated consultations on a feasibility of elaborating a model educational programme on standardization containing minimum set of issues to give a student a general understanding of the major standardization, regulatory and related issues relevant to the activities of business and of regulatory and administrative authorities.

The first draft of such programme was prepared in February 2012 in consultation with a group of experts from educational institutions from Europe and CIS region. The draft was then presented at various forums: at the April 2012 Geneva meeting of the DCMAS (Network on Metrology, Accreditation and Standardization for Developing Countries), at the May 2012 ICES (International Cooperation for Education about Standardization) conference in Bali and at the June 2012 European conference on education about standardization in Brussels.

These discussions culminated with an UNECE Workshop on “Introducing Standards-related issues in Educational Curricula” which took place on 8 November 2012 in Geneva in the framework of the WP.6 22-nd annual session. More than 80 delegates and experts from about 20 countries and around 10 international and regional organizations representing academia, standards bodies, ministries of education and business adopted a new version of Recommendation “I’ (“education on standards-related issues”) and agreed on the importance of promoting and teaching standardization through elaborating coordinated approaches and building on existing national best practices.

The STARTed Initiative on Education on Standardization held its first meeting on 20th November 2013 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva (minutes). Presentations were delivered by CEN/CENELEC (PPT1, PPT2), and IPQ/CT 187 and a Game on standards and Innovation titled "The Sky is the Limit" was played.